Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials
We’d never really thought of Dallas as a “vacation” destination, but there’s so much to do there that we barely scratched the surface on our recent trip! We ate lots of good food, explored fun neighborhoods, and found more kid-friendly activities than we had time for. So here’s a quick recap of some of our favorite Dallas destinations. Plus some things we want to come back and see next time!
I know a house always evolves to work with a family’s changing needs, but I’d say this kitchen and attached sitting area are as close to absolutely done as ever. In fact over the last two years they’ve held pretty steady – we did update the kitchen light to my dream chandelier that looks like bubbles at a beach sunset. And before that we finally settled on the right seating that fit perfectly into the seating area. But yeah, since then… settled! So it felt like it was finally time to share how it all turned out.
Serenbe is a small “New Urban” community about 45 minutes south of Atlanta in a rural town called Chattahoochee Hills. It’s sort of a mix of an upscale-feeling suburban development and an eco-conscious resort in the countryside. We recently took a 3-night trip with our kids and had a great time exploring, eating, and spending time in nature!
Succulents are some of the easiest houseplants to propagate because there are several ways to do it. Today we’ll show how one succulent can be turned into many (even a dozen or more!). So whether you’re looking to grow your own collection or gift some plants to friends, this is a fun and easy process to try!
Never heard of Ocean Springs, Mississippi? Neither had we! But it caught our eye on round-ups like Southern Living’s 15 Most Adorable Small Towns and USA Today’s 10 Best Coastal Small Towns where it ranked #1. So a few months ago our family decided to check it out for ourselves. It did NOT disappoint! We actually considered detouring through Ocean Springs on our weekend trip to New Orleans two years ago. But now we’re glad we didn’t shortchange it with a quick pitstop and gave it a full trip of its own.
Just like we did for our 2023 Gift Guides and our 2022 Gift Guides, we’ve got all three of our gift lists in one singular post right here. So let’s dive right into the 3 categories that we cover each year: Every year that we make these, we love including actual things that we own and enjoy, as well as things that we’re buying for others (like our own kids, each other, and relatives/friends). Also feels like a good moment to mention that nothing was sponsored/gifted to get into this guide. If something is on these lists, we just genuinely love it and think it would make a good gift (and in some cases, we already
In November of 2020, we published a post called “What’s It Like To Downsize” after living in our smaller home for 6 months. We covered a range of experiences – like the good things about moving to a smaller home (owning less stuff! saving money!) and some of its challenges, especially in the initial stages of downsizing (paring down! figuring out storage!). We still agree with everything in that post, but it had only been six months… and since it has now been over 4.5 years (!!!), we feel like we have a few more to add about the long-haul downsizing experience. Let’s get into it. I won’t recap our entire decision to downsize (you
My best friend and I live in different parts of the country (we’ve been best friends for 24 years, and have only spent about 1/3 of them in the same city), so we love taking trips together. Let me tell you, the joy of packing light (only for yourself! not the whole fam!) and having a few nights of sleepovers in a fun new place and exploring so freely (just us eating dessert for breakfast if we want to!)… it’s euphoric. And our latest trip that we enjoyed was a completely new spot for me! She grew up going to Sedona with her family, but I had never been! She didn’t have to work hard
Dyeing your clothes can sound difficult, messy, and downright scary. But guess what? It’s none of those things! After all, I’m the girl who dyed her wedding dress so I could wear it again. Trust me, anyone can dye clothes at home because it’s easy, straightforward, and crazy affordable.
Big renovations are exciting and fun, but it’s no secret that they can also be really stressful – especially when it’s one of those expensive, weeks-long, life-interrupting renovations like a kitchen or bathroom. Things go wrong, budgets get broken, timelines go haywire, and somehow there’s always dust everywhere. EVERYWHERE. So since we’ve renovated 7 houses over the past 17 years, we thought it might be helpful to share our best tips for preparing for & minimizing renovation stress.
We started using a homemade window cleaner last year and immediately regretted not switching sooner. Not only is it cheaper than storebought stuff like Windex, it also cleans better and without streaks! Plus, it only takes 2 ingredients (although more can be added). So grab an empty spray bottle and come see the light with us! That’s supposed to be a clean window pun, btw…
It’s safe to say that we love traditional baby names (aka classic names or old-fashioned names). We named both of our kids after our grandparents – one on J’s side and one on mine. I recently heard names like that for baby girls being called “old lady names.” Not sure how I feel about that – but a timeworn and classic name just feels like it’s lovely and enduring. A friend of mine recently had a baby girl and it was fun to talk about all the names they were considering for her. And since I already shared a list of 100 classic boy names, I also loved compiling this list of my favorite classic old-fashioned baby girl names.
